On gambling, horror, cozy, videogames ► Ludology Now!

I love gambling. I’ve been playing poker since I was six and going to casinos since I was sixteen. I’ve only lived in one state with legalized gambling, but on each and every vacation I try to squeeze it in, if possible.

The thing is, I also have a massive aversion to spending money. This keeps me safe in casinos. If I tell myself I am going to go into this building and it will cost me $20, I know that if I lose that $20, I am not allowed to take out more. If I stay an hour and a half and can keep playing on that same $20, that’s just as good as going to the movies.

Plus, every now and then you get that $20 back, or maybe turn it into $30, or $40. That’s the fun of gambling. But you need to go into it with the mentality of “this $20 is lost to me, I am paying for the experience, and that’s okay.”

It’s also important to note that many videogames are categorized as gambling when they shouldn’t be. Balatro was called a gambling game because of all the poker references, but it wasn’t really. At the end of the day, Balatro was a roguelike deckbuilder with casino-theming, at worst.

CloverPit, on the other hand, is just gambling with extra steps. The core gameplay loop of CloverPit is just a slot machine. You’re just at the mercy of random chance, no matter how many modifiers you collect. I can’t stop playing it.

CloverPit is the slot machine version of Buckshot Roulette. It all takes place in one singular room, it has that “haunted PS1 demo disc” graphics filter you’re quite familiar with at this point, and there’s something vaguely existential going on in the background.

Why are you here, in this room? What is the money you earn funding? Much like in Buckshot Roulette, one can’t help but wonder, “what is my jailer getting out of this?” when playing CloverPit. What did the player do to get stuck in such a purgatory? And does that matter?

Horror games in 2025

The games industry is dead, long live the games industry. Things are bleak in many corners of gaming, but fans of horror videogames have not been eating this well in a long time. Many people mourn the death of P.T., but 11 years later, I think we’re better off.

Let me explain. The cancellation of Silent Hills and the years after forced other companies, other developers, to step up and fill the void Konami (and, at the time, Capcom) had left behind. An entire generation of horror fans turned to indie games, just like an entire generation of horror fans turned to indie movies in the 1970s. That put us on the path to where we are today.

From Mouthwashing to No I’m Not A Human, and even in the last few years with games like Ten Bells, Iron Lung, and Hollowbody, the best horror experiences I’ve had have been found in these smaller, contained indie games. Sure, every now and then big publishers drop by to dip their toe into the horror waters, but a remake of Silent Hill 2 (or even Silent Hill f) isn’t going to scratch the same itch that something completely new will. It can’t.

One of the reasons why it can’t is that indie horror has the ability to be so many things that so-called AAA horror cannot. Yes, CloverPit is horror-themed — there’s skulls and blood and murder and an evil overlord telling you what to do — but it’s also just as much a cozy game. There you are, in your little room with your trinkets, pulling your little lever. How cute are you?

To some, I’m sure Hollow Knight: Silksong is a horror game. Look at those monsters, look at how many bugs, look at the disgusting, beautiful backgrounds. It’s gross. It’s lovely. Listen to the singing bugs, they are so cute.

This crossover between horror games and cozy games is interesting, but not surprising in the indie space. It’s too big a gamble and genre-mashup for a ‘AAA’ studio to ever try to capitalize on, but a lot of the biggest horror fans I know are also the nicest, most cuddly people out there. It makes sense.

And another thing

This is the 52nd weekly issue of Ludology Now!, which means this column has officially been in production for a full year. Somehow, we have opened and closed this cycle by talking about horror games and Silent Hill 2 again. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I’ll be honest, some weeks it’s been difficult to find both the time and the energy to devote to this. Sometimes it feels like it is wasted effort, a vanity project benefitting no one. There are weeks where I feel like I have nothing good to say, nothing worth adding to any larger conversation.

In 1924, mountaineer George Mallory disappeared while climbing Mount Everest. It is unclear whether he made it to the top or not. One year earlier, when asked by a reporter why he wanted to climb the largest mountain in the world, Mallory had replied, “Because it’s there.”

Writing a weekly column climbing Mount Everest is not, and yet it was something I wanted to accomplish. It didn’t feel like it would actually be a thing unless I did it for at least a year. If you’re reading this, we made it.

It feels good. I can cross “Write a weekly column for at least a year” off my list, and in six years maybe I’ll compile them all into a book and call it On the Creative Gene like Kojima before me. If nothing else, we can look at the top ten most-read Ludology Now! columns and perhaps learn something about ourselves:

As to the future of Ludology Now!, I don’t know. I can’t see myself doing this every week for another year. At the most basic level, I don’t work from home anymore AND I don’t currently work in the games industry at all. I have a partner and three kids. It’s hard to keep up.

That’s not to say this is the end of Ludology Now! forever. Video games are still a large part of my life and I still love talking about them. I just don’t want to impose yet another deadline on myself right now. There are enough of those.

All this to say, this is not goodbye. This is a ‘see you soon’ if anything. Thank you to each and every person who has read this far, to everyone who has read any of the previous 51 issues, and to everyone who has shared them with their friends. From the bottom of my heart, I deeply appreciate it.

And thank you to the entire team here at Bonus Action for putting up with my nonsense every week, and for providing a place for independent games media to thrive. There are lots of places to read gaming content out there these days, but the team here at BA cares more than most about both the games and the humans behind them. Read their work.

Anyway, I’m going to go play more CloverPit now. I can stop any time I want, I keep telling myself. Maybe after the next round, I will. Yes, just one more.